Visitors Help New Yorkers Whoop It Up For Liberty

NEW YORK — Those who have come to America through the ''Golden Door'' in recent decades have seen the lady this way -- from the sky, not from the sea.

At 7,000 feet, from an airline making a night approach, New York's lights blazed across its bridges, highways and skyline.

Ablaze alone in the blackness of New York Harbor -- placid amid the hoopla planned in honor of her centennial -- was the Statue of Liberty.

''It's great to see it from the air,'' said Tim Forward, 28, of Orlando, looking out a window.

As the flight from Orlando banked over Brooklyn at 11 p.m. Wednesday, technicians were testing spotlights on the statue.

Those lights, triggered by a laser beam from Governors Island, let President Reagan and French President Francois Mitterrand unveil the Statue of Liberty again Thursday night.

Liberty Weekend is transforming this ordinarily frenzied city into one big celebration of the symbol of freedom in its harbor.

New York police inspector Allen Hoehl says this event evokes memories of Operation Sail in New York during the nation's bicentennial in 1976.

As then, New Yorkers are acting in unaccustomed ways -- often smiling at strangers on the street. Perhaps it helps that those smiling often are wearing one of those silly foam Liberty crowns on sale everywhere.

''New York has a unique spirit,'' Hoehl said. ''Everybody gets into a celebratory mood.''

Yet some expressed ambivalence about the throngs expected to come into their neighborhoods.

''The mood in New York is everyone is getting the hell out of town,'' said Fred Lerro, as he drank coffee in a Greek coffee shop called The Money Tree. Lerro said he planned to stay in town but not necessarily to watch the fireworks tonight. ''I'm staying home to watch the house.''

Ursula Wiskoski, after selling four Statue of Liberty postcards to a customer at a Soho gallery, confessed her plans to flee ''this invasion'' of visitors. Perhaps to Vermont, she said.

While New York expects millions more on its streets for this celebration, the city's skies have their own congestion problem.

Tom Olivo of Wall Street Helicopters took off Thursday morning from the 34th Street heliport to take three press photographers on a swing past the statue. Many other helicopters and blimps buzzed and floated about the statue Thursday morning.

Without air traffic controllers watching the harbor, Olivo said, ''you're on your own. The main thing to watch out for is other aircraft.''

In the quiet of the New York Public Library's newspaper annex, librarian Stephan Saks threaded a microfilm into a viewer. The film held an edition of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Oct. 28, 1886 -- the day the Statue of Liberty was dedicated.

''The scene on lower Broadway beggared description,'' the Eagle reported. ''In every part were surging crowds that the utmost exertions of the police could not keep in order.''

For on this day, the newspaper account said, ''the greatest statue that ever came across a sculptor's hands takes its place among the wonders of the modern world, a mighty monument to Liberty. . . .''